Press Release
11 June 2008
UK backs India's plans to get all primary-aged children into school
A flagship education programme that aims to enroll all children in India into
primary school by 2010 has been given £150 million UK government backing,
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said today.
The Department for International Development’s (DFID) support will be used to ensure that all children aged 6 to 14 are enrolled and attend primary school. There will also be a focus on getting more girls and children from marginalised social groups into education and to improve the quality of education available.
The funding is part of DFID’s new seven-year Country Plan - ‘Three Faces of
India’ which sets out how the UK will target its support for India’s neediest
people. The India Country Plan
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outlines how the UK will help to fight poverty in India’s poorest regions with a
particular focus on boosting child literacy, cutting deaths in pregnancy and
reducing child malnutrition.
Launching the plan at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group for India, Douglas Alexander said:
"India has rightly gained a reputation as an emerging global power. But we should not forget that is just one face of India. More that 400 million people in India live on less than 50p a day. And we know that without tackling the enormous poverty challenges in India the world will fail to meet the Millennium Development Goals.
"Education is vital in the fight against poverty and our support will help the remaining 7.5 million children in India with no access to education get into school. This will help India reach the education Millennium Development Goal target of education for all by 2015."
Over the next five years the UK expects to invest £100 million in health and urban services, such as medical care for pregnant women and technical support for local institutions, in the state of Bihar. If Bihar was a country it would the sixth poorest in the world.
Douglas Alexander added:
"Our investments in Bihar will bring down the shockingly high malnutrition rate of 58% in the state and give better medical access to those who need it.
"This is also an example of how the Three Faces of India plan will take our development agenda forward by targeting India’s most isolated areas and marginalised people."
Gordon Brown announced earlier this year that DFID will spend £825 million in India over the next three years, £500 million of which will be spent to improve education access and quality, health for mothers and children, and to fight infectious diseases.
Notes to Editors
- For the past five years DFID’s programme in India has exceeded £200 million a year, working with both the national government and the four focus states of Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. DFID has focused on economic and fiscal reform, livelihoods and enterprise, education and health, urban development and water and sanitation.
- Three Faces of India will focus on:
- Poorest India: the 370-400 million people living on less than $1 per day who can’t access basic services or feed their children adequately;
- Developing India: the 500 million people living on less than $2 per day, not rich by any standards and vulnerable to any shock;
- Global India: The UK will work jointly with the Government of India on global public goods (e.g. adaptation to climate change), on areas where India can contribute to poverty reduction elsewhere (e.g. generic drugs) and collaborating on reform of the international development system.
- As we move towards 2015 DFID expects to focus most financial resources on "Poorest India".
- The key areas to be addressed by the new Country Plan are Education, Health and Nutrition, Inclusive Growth and Governance Reform.
- DFID success stories in India include :
- Supporting the reduction in the total number of out-of-school children by more than 15 million in the last four years
- Strengthening public sector management and finances in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal
- Pioneering new approaches in rural development programmes, putting people’s livelihoods at their core: contributing to state and national policies, and directly raising several million farmers and landless labourers above the poverty line in DFID focus states
- The take-off in the micro-finance industry in India, and directly supporting more than 7 million microfinance clients, nearly all of them women
- Helping several million slum dwellers get improved supply of water, sanitation and other local services.
For further details please contact: Barbara Hewitt, DFID Press Office, + 44 270 023 0620
